Revision organisation and aides for GCSEs

[Doghelp12]

I have a very capable teenage son about to go into his GCSE year. His predicted and current grades are very scattered.
Predicted and current grade 9 in Business
Predicted and current grade 8 in Maths
Predicted 7 current 6 in English
Predicted and current 5 in triple science
Predicted 6 current 5 in Spanish
Predicted 6 current 5 in History.

All previous years his predicted gardes have been 7 or above in all areas.
I believe this is very much an organisation issues. I have ADHD and most of my academic struggles were organisation and time keeping.

I would like to set up a revision area for him with some clear, uncluttered resources for revision. He has a PC, but it is mostly set up in an area that is a 'gaming' area. So I would like a separate place.

I have no organisational skills or creative abilities.

Can anyone suggest a physical set up in really simple terms I can follow.

Inboxes and outboxes? Tick lists? What would work?

I've even considered a mini fridge in the room that I top up with a snack and drink each day. Just something to motivate him in those subjects he finds a challenge.

Study Buddy was set up by a MN parent Revision Planning System | End Exam Stress | The Study Buddy I have not used it myself but the principles are what I did to help my dyspraxic disorganised DD1 with her GCSE revision. It may well be worth your while in investing in this as it provides a visual method for organising revision.

The other thing with revision is it needs to be tangible. It is far better to write notes, do a quiz, write facts from memory, do questions than to just read the revision guide. Each revision session should have a goal and an outcome. Not 'revise chemistry' but 'learn the properties of metals'.

Thank you. I will take a look.

He does quizzes often, and uses all the right phrases like 'I'm focusing on my subject knowledge, I'll look at how to structure answers after'.

I have no concerns that he doesn't know the facts, but I think he will miss out on marks on how he answers.

In that case, practice questions will be key ideally with someone else using the mark scheme to mark them (in case he cheats himself) to make sure he hits all the mark points (eg the whys, the technical terms etc)

That's a good point about how to structure answers. There were a couple of very interesting posts (from history markers and teachers) on a thread on this board about a specific qu in GCSE history and how easy it is to write an answer which appears to be competent but in fact does not answer the question and will score zero. I have seen the same thing in Eng lang.

It's not really the case in the same way in my subject (MFL) BUT it is possible to miss marks there by not including (for example) a range of tenses, development of answers and plenty of opinions and reasons in your free answers (ie speaking and writing).

Hard agree btw that revision needs to be targeted (learn 10 Spanish irregular verbs; learn the causes of WW1) and also active. Good ways to learn inc teaching someone else (a parent will do!) and look cover check. With DS1 we used to go on a walk with a past paper and answer questions verbally. He never wrote things down as it didn;t work for him. Your DC needs to find a way for it to embed itself in a useful manner. YY also need to make sure you are followign the mark scheme brutally. See note above re history qu.

I like the study room snack fridge idea tho!

Print out the curriculum and make sure they cover it all in their revision. Unit test results can be helpful in identifying areas that need a bit more time spending on them
.
past papers can be really helpful once the knowledge is there. They have to know the key words and how to apply those to their answers. School should help with this too, but for many bright kids marks are lost on their answers not quite hitting the spot for command words like evaluate , describe, compare etc.

past papers are also very useful for getting their timing right. There’s no point in spending loads of time on low mark answers and not getting to the high mark questions at the end. They need to know the format of the papers and work out appropriate timing to avoid this.

DD has a tower of 9 Rainbow drawers... one for each subject to keep all her resources together for each one. Shes chosenher oreffered revision guides, flashcards etv, and an ample pile of Stationery.

Does he need extra time?
is he completing the exams?

go over all the verbs and vocab for spanish. Then he can build up better answers.
you can watch some netflix in other languages/subtitles.

mine is adhd too and likely to under perform. Mine especially wont be able to ramp up a lot at the end

My heart sinks when I see the advice to watch Netflix in TL for GCSE MFL.

I fear that teens doing this think that's all the work they need to do. It can't do any harm, true, but to pass GCSE MFL you need a good grasp of what the exam requires and yes, solid knowledge of verbs, vocab and other key structures.

Physical space does make a difference.

I revamped DD’s desk so she has:

1. a “natural daylight” craft lamp from Hobbycraft with different brightness settings which I bought in a sale
2. A metal shelf unit from IKEA which sits on top of her desk - it’s big enough to hold lever arch files.
3. a big desk with an IKEA pegboard above it. My intention was this could be useful but dd just made it pretty but that’s important too
4. separate shelf and cupboard unit for her revision books and supplies (she’s doing art - so there is a lot of materials for that)
5. new stationery - some new folders, plastic mini files, post it notes, etc

Then I researched the exam board for all her subjects and bought a revision guide for each from Vinted. For English (her only really weak subject) I added extra workbooks and pre-prepared revision cards and model answer books. The aim is she can dip in and out, and buying them second hand it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t use them.

I leave her to organise her own revision - her school is fabulous at providing apps, websites, top up lunchtime clubs for gcse subjects and advice.

they sound like a good idea, where did you get them from?

Lots of places sell them, its the "Really Useful" brand. We fot them in Hobbycraft.

We found Seneca really good. Lots of free content and we paid for premium in the last few months which had exam questions, cram mode and a revision plan based on your current and target grades.
In history for example there were 4, 8 and 16 mark questions with AI partly marking and asking you to mark based on guidance.
MFL had listening and reading exercises on the different topics.

Thank you! I showed DD and she said no thanks 😂I think they are brilliant

Mine really rated Anki app for making flashcards. We ended up paying for the upgraded version so they could use it more.
My youngest used the big lists of q and a in the exam board revision guide to make tons of flashcards for science topics, and made their own for loads of eng lit quotes, and put lots of material into them for other subjects using summary page stuff the teachers had given them or got them to make.
You can divide it all into topics and the app remembers which ones you did well on, and which you didn’t, and brings them up over and over.
I was a bit skeptical at it all being on the phone but really they worked v v well, and I’d use them to test him too.
It really made sure he’d done the basics for all topics. Still needed a good clear desk space to do lots of written practice too, past papers etc. But if they like flashcards, def worth looking into those ones.

My DS has just got 99888886. He is not very self-motivated or disciplined yet and probably could have done better- but they are good results for where he is at emotionally.

We have plenty of space at home for him to have a study area, but it was much better for him to work at the kitchen table where there were always people around. Us wandering by regularly would make him keep at it; he would have drifted off if sitting in his own space. We basically gave up the kitchen table for a year. We helped him make timetables and identify the learning strategies that worked for him. On days he really struggled, we sat alongside him. Usually I would be doing my own work, but being able to dip in and out with support helped him stay on task.

I'd recommend buying the text books (not just the revision guide) for the spec even though they are expensive. It's really useful to have the full scope of information in one place. I'd also go directly to the board syllabus and use them as tick lists for revision planning.